Panic started to bloom. “But I—”
Teddy held up a hand to command silence. “You need to choose your words carefully now, Graham. I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to.”
Graham’s mind screamed. No more pain. Please, please no more pain. “Can I ask you a question?” he said.
Teddy smiled. “A question.” He looked to the other men who stood nearby. “Certainly. Ask your question.”
Graham took a deep, settling breath. “If you were right — you’re not, but if you were — and I really did remember the code thing that you think I know, why wouldn’t you kill me after I gave it to you?”
The question seemed to intrigue Teddy. Maybe even entertain him. “Ah,” he said. “The hypothetical question. If A is so, what must be the result of B?” He laughed. “All right, I will play your game in kind. Let us say that I believe that you are lying about not remembering the code, and let us say that I would do everything and anything to get that information from you. Are you with me so far?”
Graham nodded as his stomach churned more.
“Very well,” Teddy said. “Because that is indeed the case. Rather than asking if I would want to kill you after you gave me what I seek, you should ask yourself what would be your desire to live in terrible pain?”
Graham’s heart hammered.
Teddy continued, “So far, you have merely been uncomfortable. You have been cold. But your fingers and toes have not yet been broken. Your knees have not yet been shattered and your testicles have not yet been crushed. Hot wires have not yet been inserted into your eyes. I have done all those things to others, and there is no reason why I would not do the same to you. If you give me what I want, and if I kill you after, I give you my word that it will be quick.” He looked to his gang and they all laughed.
Graham stared. Whatever they saw in his face made them laugh harder.
“You are frightened,” Teddy said. “It’s good for you to be frightened. I will make a deal with you. Stay here for a while in the warm tub. You think about what I say, and about what you want. We will walk away for a little while — not long, but for a while. We give you time to decide which you like more, comfort or pain. Is fair, no?”
Graham nodded because it was the only thing he could think to do.
“Good,” Teddy said, and he clapped Graham on the shoulder. “You give me your answer when I come back. Then life becomes capricious again.”
Jonathan walked to the kitchen archway to see if Boxers needed help with Security Solutions’s latest toy. The long gray box that looked like it might contain a set of golf clubs in fact contained an RQ-11 Raven UAV — unmanned aerial vehicle, a drone. The man-portable aircraft, when assembled, had a fifty-five-inch wingspan and weighed a little over four pounds. Propelled by an electric motor, the Raven could stay airborne for over an hour at a cruising altitude of five hundred feet at a distance from the controller of six miles and change. It was the most expensive model airplane that Jonathan had ever bought.
The container in Boxers’ other hand was a bit smaller, but much heavier. It contained the electronics, the antennas, and the various support equipment that were necessary to control the aircraft. Once it was over the target, Raven would transmit high-definition images back to the command post from its tiny but amazing camera.
“You okay there, Big Guy?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
“What is all that crap that you’re bringing into my house?” Dawn asked. While the money had opened her home, her heart apparently remained disengaged.
“Some very cool technology,” Jonathan said.
His earbud popped as it broke squelch. “Scorpion, Mother Hen.”
Jonathan pressed the transmit button on his vest. “Go ahead.”
“Who are you talking to?” Dawn demanded.
LeBron reached out and touched his wife’s arm. “Dawn,” he said.
Jonathan ignored her and focused on the voice in his ear. “I’ve been able to pull up some details on the building in question. Are you in a position to receive?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Give me five minutes.”
“Who are you talking to?” Dawn demanded again. “And what happens in five minutes?”
“I’m talking to the folks back at home.” Jonathan moved to his ruck as he responded, and ripped open the Velcro on the main pouch. He lifted out his heavy-duty laptop computer and a collapsed satellite antenna.
“And where is home?”
“You have no need to know,” Jonathan said. He had neither the time nor the desire to engage in small talk. His hands working from muscle memory, Jonathan unfolded the tiny antenna and placed it on top of the television set, pointed out the front window.
“What’s that for?” Georgie asked.
“A signal for my computer,” Jonathan replied. He hooked up the cable and began the boot-up process.
“We have wireless Internet,” Georgie said.
Jonathan shook his head and smiled. “Not for this, you don’t.” He wasn’t going to attempt to explain the complex encryptions or other tech speak because, quite frankly, he didn’t understand it very well himself.
When he was booted up and ready to go, he pressed his transmit button. “Okay Mother Hen, we’re set.”
LeBron laughed. “Mother Hen? Really?”
“She doesn’t like it much, either,” Jonathan said.
The screen on Jonathan’s laptop flickered once, and then it was filled with a daytime image of a rectangular industrial building and its immediate surroundings. “This comes from a commercial mapping company,” Venice said in his ear. Commercial mapping company translated to illegal tap into our friends at Fort Meade. “Before we go any further, is this the facility you’re talking about?”
“Hey, look!” Georgie said, pointing to the screen. “That’s our house.”
Jonathan pressed Transmit. “Affirmative. That’s the location.”
“Is that Google Maps?” LeBron asked.
“Like that,” Jonathan said off the air. “Look, I’m going to need a little space, okay? If you want to watch, watch, but try to keep the talking down.” He didn’t bother to look back at Boxers. If it were left to Big Guy, the family would be gagged and locked in the closet where they couldn’t see anything. Jonathan understood his point — the only way to maintain operational security is to reveal the least amount of information to the fewest people — but sometimes the nature of the operation required including others. Jonathan was confident that their lack of official identity would provide them with adequate backstop against any details of this evening that LeBron and his family might leak to their friends.
Jonathan’s screen changed to reveal a highly detailed street view of the same property, which now clearly was a factory. The sign over the door read Excalibur Meatpacking Enterprises, Inc.
“That’s amazing,” LeBron said. “You can count the bricks in the wall. How can you get that kind of detail?”
“Was ‘try to keep the talking down’ really that complicated an instruction?” Boxers asked.
“Don’t you get bossy in my house!” Dawn snapped.
Boxers said, “Yes, ma’am.”
Jonathan smiled at that exchange. Deep down inside, Boxers had always been moderately terrified of women. It wasn’t something they talked about, but Jonathan had long suspected that Boxers had grown through an odd childhood.
Using a tiny button of a joystick, Jonathan was able to manipulate the image for a 360-degree walk-around tour of the entire plant. “Come take a look, Big Guy,” he said. Two seconds later, a shadow loomed behind him. Over the course of the next five minutes, they noted the main routes of ingress and egress, the location of the loading dock, and other details that might be important, such as the height of windows and the nature and locations of structures on the roof.